In 2007, using the pen name “Scott Thomas”, Beauchamp filed three entries in The New Republic about serving at Forward operating base Falcon, Baghdad. These entries concerned alleged misconduct by soldiers, including Beauchamp, in post-invasion Iraq.
…
“We are not going into the details of the investigation,” Maj. Steven F. Lamb, deputy public affairs officer in Baghdad, wrote in an e-mail message. “The allegations are false, [Beauchamp’s] platoon and company were interviewed, and no one could substantiate the claims he made.”
— Scott Thomas Beauchamp controversy

A fitting end for a liberal rag that has abandoned the truth for the pouring of hate and progressive ideas . Liberals love to talk about their “reality based” community and how the media is “unbiased”. TNR shows the sad fact that liberals and facts are in a messy divorce.

The midterms showed that we’re not socialists now (that was Newsweek, that got sold for pennies on the dollar after not being in print for awhile).

The “liberal moment” is over and the progressives have lost. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Put a man in uniform, preferably a white man, give him a gun, and Americans will worship him. It is a particularly childish trait, of a childlike culture, that insists on anointing all active military members and police officers as “heroes.” The rhetorical sloppiness and intellectual shallowness of affixing such a reverent label to everyone in the military or law enforcement betrays a frightening cultural streak of nationalism, chauvinism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but it also makes honest and serious conversations necessary for the maintenance and enhancement of a fragile democracy nearly impossible.
— David Masciotra, quotes at This Ain’t Hell.

Yeah, douchenugget, it’s not the uniform that makes folks worthy of respect and a measure of adulation, it’s what the uniform says about the person wearing it and their commitment to the ideals that they are defending. Anyone can buy a uniform and put it on – our Stolen Valor page is chocked full of people who do that. Those spazwads do it because the uniformed services are the last government institutions which accomplish that for which they were created.
— Jonn Lilyea’s response.

Of course the left hates the military. After Vietnam, many leftists seethed. They almost got what they wanted. From the 70’s to the early 90’s the psycho veteran and military conspiracy was a stock trope of Hollywood movies. Phrases like “permanent war economy” and “military industrial complex” were twisted into knots until the men and women of the armed forces were seen as villains.

But there was always a group of people who did the right thing. From Welcome Home parties for Vietnam vets, service organizations that helped military families and those who say “thank you for your service.”

On my blog I have many former soldiers leaving comments about their time in the Army. They don’t talk about the garbage David Masciotra spews. Their comments are fond memories of their time in green.

David Masciotra, I don’t see your panty waist helping military families who’ve lost a loved one. No leftie has ever said “welcome home” nor have they tired to offer job placement for returning vets. Ditto their never helping police families or crime victims.

Nope, they love the stolen valor losers, posers and pot smoking hippies rail about the poor and imperialism. They praise murderers, dictators, criminals and hold signs that support terrorism.

David Masciotra does not support or help anyone but himself. Better men and women have died to protect his right to be a jerkass, for that at least he should be thankful.

The U.S. has made the case as strongly as they can to regional countries, including Kuwait. But ultimately when you take a hands off, leading from behind approach to things, people don’t take you seriously and they take matters into their own hands.
— America’s Allies Are Funding ISIS, Josh Rogin, The Daily Beast.com

“The elephant in the room, unmentioned by Obama, is what happens if Iraq’s leaders — or the rebels — turn out to be uninterested in compromise. In particular, the president never said anything approaching this: “We will under no circumstances permit the terrorists to take control of Iraq.”

Barack Obama is a man who knows how to use words. It’s possible, then, that this omission was intended to prepare us for the worst.”
— What Obama Didn’t Say About Iraq, Stephen L. Carter, Bloombergview.com

America didn’t lose Iraq, it was given away by a party and an Administration bound and determined to “get out of Bush’s War.” The left cares not for foreign affairs, it distracts from the domestic agenda of taxing and spending*. When they do show interest, it’s to kiss the ass of oil sucking dictators or to kow-tow to any foreign tyrant. Or simply parrot the current thinking of Europe’s intellectual class.

Iraq could have used American troops. ISIS is an Al-Qaeda spin-off. A failed Iraq spells trouble for the US. Sadly, we American’s don’t care about foreign wars, but foreign wars do care about us.

The left likes to say that they ended Vietnam and now Iraq. That somehow the Democrats brought us troops home. Lies. George Bush signed the agreement to withdraw from Iraq when their coalition government didn’t want a Status Of Forces Agreement.

But if you see Tumblr, Reddit or other hives of lefty scum and villainy, the Democrats are treated like royalty for “bringing the troops home” (not really, we’re still gonna be in Afghanistan until 2017). Don’t forget the drone strikes. Clinton has his cruise missiles, this Whitehouse has kill lists and drones. Hands off and leading from behind.

So as the media has sown, so shall the American public be forced to reap the bitter harvest.

*: I’m not kidding about that. See TheOtherMcCain for our “reality based community’s” take on Iraq:

Jackasses like Timothy McVeigh get branded about every so often (a SF washout and marginal soldier who was demoted from E-5 to E-1).

“Frazier Glenn Cross, also known as Frazier Glenn Miller, is accused of killing three people outside a Jewish community center and Jewish retirement community on April 13, according to media reports. The Fayetteville Observer reported that Miller is a former Ku Klux Klan leader as well as a retired master sergeant who served in Army Special Forces. He was forced to retire in 1979 for distributing racist materials.”
— Veterans slam New York Times piece linking vets to hate groups, Militarytimes.com

Yep, another “veteran”. And here is the MSM stock narrative:

“The number of Vietnam veterans in that movement was small — a tiny proportion of those who served — but Vietnam veterans forged the first links between Klansmen and Nazis since World War II. They were central in leading Klan and neo-Nazi groups past the anti-civil rights backlash of the 1960s and toward paramilitary violence. The white power movement they forged had strongholds not only in the South, but also in the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, California and Pennsylvania. Its members carried weapons like those they had used in Vietnam, and used boot-camp rhetoric to frame their pursuit of domestic enemies. They condoned violence against innocent people and, eventually, the state itself.”
— Veterans and White Supremacy, By KATHLEEN BELEW, NYT.com

Plenty of “weasle words” there, I’ve highlighted them. She goes on to say:

Mr. Miller obviously represents an extreme, both in his politics and in his violence. A vast majority of veterans are neither violent nor mentally ill. When they turn violent, they often harm themselves, by committing suicide.

And here is the epic smack down:

“Make no mistake—if there were extremists in the ranks, commanders would be quick to give them the boot; the Army’s regulations give them plenty of latitude to do so. In fact, that actually happened in the case of Frazier Miller,
…Finally, understand that Mr. Miller represents just one of over 20 million veterans in America—roughly the entire population of the state of New York. One person does not make a trend.”
—Racists in the ranks? Not in this Army., Crispin J. Burke, Medium.com

As both XBradTC, the Military Times and the Department Of Defense are quick to point out, being a racist nutjob gets a soldier back on the street with a quickness.

Tattoos are inspected, background checks are done. Sure there are some idiots who fall through the cracks. But contrary to what liberals, progressives and places like the Southern “Poverty” Law Center think, there is no mass movement of racist “vets”.

Extremist groups try, they send pamphlets, use the internets and attempt to use social media. And the IG, the DoD’s special law enforcement agencies and the FBI are quick to find them.

I suspect that this “meme” is more battlespace prep for 2014 and backlash over the fail of progressive causes. Expect to see Tea Party rallies peppered with “racist milita” and veterans running for office smeared with this.

The left hates the military and this is one way they have to swipe at recruitment and the treatment of vets.

“If the goal is to “stir up the base” with a targeted message to a narrow, liberal audience in order to bring in fundraising dollars, that’s one thing. But Reid’s speech on the Senate floor suggests a broader Democratic strategy to run on a message focused on the Koch brothers, two wealthy men most whom voters have never heard of and probably could care less about.”
—The Democrats’ Dumb Koch Strategy, The Daily Beast.com

“Of course it is a dumb strategy, but you underestimate how dumb the democrat constituency is. They’ll regurgitate anything the DNC puts out. Bunch of mindless drones.”
—Murphy9 on March 6, 2014 at 7:23 PM, comment at HotAir.com

This is just the crisis to make themselves seem relevant again within the GOP—even if they’re undermining the commander in chief at a pivotal moment.
— Why Neocons Love the StrongmanMichael Tomasky, The Daily Beast

It’s likely, then, that the J-20 no more represents the end of US air superiority than did Cope India or the T-50’s debut. What it does represent is the world’s second economy finally joining a club of nations long-accustomed to designing, building and operating advanced fighter aircraft.
— China’s Over-Hyped Stealth Jet, David Axe, The Diplomat.

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen how much the J-20’s design changes matter and indeed how effective an aircraft it is. But it is evident that the plane’s flight testing, at least, is far more than just a publicity stunt.
—Stealth Changes for China’s Stealth FighterGERRY DOYLE, NEW YORK TIMES. Gobssmacks David Axe.

It must hurt when reality overtakes liberal fantasy.

For decades the left’s orthodoxy was that the West was to make peace with Russia/The USSR, China and that “the tide of war was receding”.

Russia is INVADING the Ukraine. They used TBM’s on Georgia. China is building a modern networked force.

And yet, Michael Tomasky makes current events be all about the left and how those meanie Neo-cons runied everything.

Lest we forget, the media and the left (I repeat myself) went easy on Putin, Hugo Chavez and China. David Axe seems to think that the US military sucks and we have nothing to fear.

So when real life starts to hurt them, they either face reality (and start crying) or escape to fantasy.

“This isn’t 1940. Moreover, as an instrument of coercion, that smaller army would be more lethal than the much larger one that helped defeat Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Given a choice between a few hundred of today’s Abrams tanks and a few thousand vintage Shermans, Gen. George Patton would not hesitate to choose the former.”
—
Do we really need a large Army?By Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Post.

This is the same paper that whitewashes the drone strikes. George Bush would never have been given an article titled “5 myths of the Iraq war”.

And yet the “argument” for cutting the military persists.This Ain’t Hell skewers Tom Rick’s argument for “going to a cadre-like military, with only two Army divisions kept at high readiness”.

The left believes that troops are stupid. Just draft the bodies you need, buy the tanks, trucks and planes and then send them off to war. Lefties won’t go of course, the draft dogers of the 60’s became to leaders of today.

No they want to cut to the bone and keep cutting. there is talk of a new round of BRAC. Closing MORE bases, gutting civilian towns, eroding the defense industrial base. All for more spending on “domestic programs”.

Once the troops leave, their expertise is gone forever. You can’t draft leadership, tribal knowledge or hours in the cockpit.

“In the meantime, the world, from East Asia to the Middle East, is “unsettled” and becoming ever more so. Does anyone doubt that the decision in Washington to slash its defenses has been fully noted in Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, and North Waziristan? Like Jeremiah, we say judgment is inevitable. Unless the present course is reversed, the wages of weakness will be paid in increased instability, crises, and ultimately conflicts that might well have been avoided.”
—
“Deeply Unsettling“, Gary Schmitt and Thomas Donnelly, WeeklyStandard.com

Notice:

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